[Note: Every Friday on First Thoughts we host heated, half-serious, half-cocked arguments about some aspect of pop culture. Today’s theme is short stories. Have a suggestion for a topic? Send them to me at jcarter@firstthings.com]
In his Devil’s Dictionary, Ambrose Pierce defined a novel as “a short story padded.” This is an all too apt description. The inability to prune a story to its essential story is an unfortunate quality shared by many modern writers and the primary reason that bookshelves are filled with bloated novels. William Faulkner once wondered if writers didn’t become novelists after having failed at the short story, “the most demanding form after poetry.” Perhaps this is the reason there are even fewer great short stories than there are great novels.
Since I don’t presume to know what works would fill the category of “greatest short fiction” (that’s a task better suited for Alan Jacobs), the following list of short stories is not intended to be representative of the best or most profound works in a particular category. These are merely my favorite 25 stories (at least the ones I could remember) and not necessarily the ones I would argue are the best. (Yes, I know. This is a bit of a cop-out and deviation from the series format. But since this is a holiday weekend I’m feeling less contentiously opinionated than usual.)
Except for the first entry—which I would argue is one of the greatest of all times—the list is in no particular order. Links to the stories are provided whenever the stories are available online.
1. Flannery O’ Connor, Parker’s Back (The last story O’Connor wrote should be, in my estimation, the first on any list of great short stories.)
2. Leo Tolstoy, Three Questions
3. Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It
4. Frank Stockton, The Lady or the Tiger?
5. W.W. Jacobs, The Monkey’s Paw
7. Stephen Vincent Benet, The Devil and Daniel Webster
8. George Saunders, Pastoralia
9. Jonathan Lethem, Hardened Criminals (A strange tale that describes a prison in which walls are made entirely out of convicts.)
10. Flannery O’Connor, Good Country People (A Cinderella story—Southern Gothic style)
11. Ring Lardner, Haircut
12. Shusaku Endo, The Final Martyrs (A moving tale of cowardly regret by one of Japan’s best Christian writers.)
13. Ernest Hemingway, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
14. Thom Jones, The Pugilist at Rest
15. Franz Kafka, A Hunger Artist
16. Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis
17. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Birth-mark
18. James Thurber, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
19. Shirley Jackson, The Lottery (A brilliant piece of fiction from a most underrated genre—horror.)
20. Jack London, To Build A Fire
21. Richard Connell, The Most Dangerous Game
22. John Cheever, The Swimmer (On first reading this story I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. But it’s subtlety is its power. Years later I still can’t forget the haunting ending.)
23. Flannery O’ Connor, A Good A Man Is Hard To Find
24. George Saunders, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
25. Jonathan Lethem, The Happy Man (The soul of the main character in this strange story makes occasional visits to hell. His body, though, remains behind in a zombie-like state to be cared for by his exhaustively patient family. A peculiar, moving tale of speculative fiction by one of the best writers in America.)
Honorable Mention — The shortest short story Ernest Hemingway ever wrote is one of his best—and only six words long: “For Sale: Baby shoes, never Worn.”
Which stories make your list?
November 27th, 2009 | 8:41 am
Many of the stories on your list I have not read, but I will nonetheless submit a vote for two stories by Thomas Mann: “Tonio Kruger” and “A Man and his Dog”. Each is very different from the other, but both are excellent.
November 27th, 2009 | 9:28 am
The Shepherd by Frederick Forsythe should be on this list.
November 27th, 2009 | 10:01 am
I have to agree with you about “Parker’s Back.” Wonderful is too weak a word for it. The other two O’Connor stories on your list are frequently anthologized, but not that one.
I would add Hemingway’s “Hills like White Elephants,” a story which I teach every semester in an introduction to fiction course. Hawthorne’s “The Birth-Mark” is a great choice, but I would add “Young Goodman Brown.” It’s pretty hard to stop once you start listing Hawthorne short stories. By the way, I think that Hawthorne’s novels are examples of “a short story padded.” His short stories are little masterpieces, but his novels, great as they are, seem stretched out.
I think that if we can have “A River Runs Through It,” we should have Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” I want to add one more: Willa Cather’s “Neighbor Rosicky,” a subtle and beautiful story about family and the inner life of an ordinary man.
November 27th, 2009 | 10:05 am
Dear Joe,
A few of my favorites:
Kafka’s “The Judgement”
Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Dog”
Salinger’s ” For Esme, with love and squalor”
O’Connor’s ” A Good Man is Hard to Find”
O’ Connor’s ” The Artificial Nigger”
Chekhov ” Vanka”
Powers’ ” A Valiant Woman”
Jackson ” The Lottery”
Poe “The Black Cat”
Joyce ” Araby”
Joyce ” The Dead”
November 27th, 2009 | 10:15 am
I congratulate you on including two stories by Flannery O’Connor, who, in my opinion, is the most underrated writer in America. It is unfotunate that she passed away at such a young age.
November 27th, 2009 | 10:15 am
Isak Dinesen’s “The Deluge at Norderney,” one of the stories from her collection “Seven Gothic Tales.” She can write Gothic like no one I’ve read.
As an aside, I’d like to plug the movie “The Swimmer” with Burt Lancaster. Your mention of the Cheever story reminded me of the film. Although the movie is full-length it feels just like a short story and is a fascinating study.
November 27th, 2009 | 10:20 am
No Chekhov stories? One of the best opening lines of any short story is from his “Rothschild’s Fiddle”: “The town was small, worse than a village, and in it lived almost none but old people, who died so rarely it was even very annoying.” (Tr. by Pevear and Volokhonsky)
November 27th, 2009 | 10:21 am
“Fidelity” by Wendell Berry
November 27th, 2009 | 10:35 am
Ambrose Bierce wrote many sardonic and horrific short stories, but “The Monkey’s Paw” is not one of them. That honor belongs to W.W. Jacobs.
November 27th, 2009 | 12:41 pm
I don’t know about half of the stories on your list and am in no position to argue what’s best. I’ll just add a few favorites:
Wm Faulkner: “Barn Burning” and “Two Soldiers”
Caroline Gordon (F. O’Connor’s mentor): “The Last Day in the Field.”
James Thurber: “The Night the Bed Fell In.”
Eudora Welty: “Why I Live at the P.O.”
Some of these are war horses, I know, but very worthy.
November 27th, 2009 | 3:58 pm
Father Sergius by Tolstoy
I’m not sure which story I’d pick, but you should have something by O. Henry. The Social Triangle is the only title I can remember at the moment.
November 27th, 2009 | 8:07 pm
Edgar Allen Poe “The Cask of Amontillado”
Robert Louis Stevenson “The Sieur de Malatroit’s Door”
Steven King, “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”
And to lay down the sci fi card,
Isaac Asimov, “Nightfall’
Gene Wolfe, “The Death of Dr. Island”
November 27th, 2009 | 9:42 pm
One of my great favorites is Address Unknown, by Kathrine Kressman Taylor; short story/novella. It concerns two friends before WWII, one Jewish, one German. The German returns to Germany from the USA, and becomes a Nazi. The Jew, via letter, implores his old friend to save his sister. Tragically, the German refuses. The Jewish man then begins writing letters with strange and obvious “coding”, knowing the nazis will pick up on it. He avenges his sister. The story is stunning.
November 27th, 2009 | 10:03 pm
O. Henry: “The Ransom of Red Chief.”
November 28th, 2009 | 12:54 am
A Christmas favorite! The Gift of the Magi: O. Henry
http://www.online-literature.com/o_henry/1014/
November 28th, 2009 | 7:10 am
I’m happy you listed my some of my favorite O’Connor short stories! Here’s a list of a few of my favorite shorts, in no particular order:
- “Extraordinary Whiteness” by Andrew McNabb, from The Body of This
- “The Happy Prince” by Oscar Wilde
- “A Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe
I admit I’m not well-read in short fiction, so this list you posted is quite valuable to me. Thank you for sharing it. Can you persuade Alan Jacobs into making his own list, please?
“In his Devil’s Dictionary, Ambrose Pierce defined a novel as ‘a short story padded.’”
I find this a fascinating definition of a novel. I’ve wondered before if it was only a coincidence that most of my favorite novels are rather short (150-350 pages).
I’m not sure if times have changed since Faulkner’s time, but these days, fiction writers are urged to make EVERY word count two or three times over or remove it. Short stories are encouraged for practice and as a way to emerge into the writer’s market. My theory is, short stories are found in less abundance and quality because novel-writing is where the money and fame supposedly is.
November 28th, 2009 | 2:30 pm
Re: the SF card. I would not have included “Nightfall.” The idea is good, but the execution/writing is clunky.
Others in the genre worth a look for their writing:
Nancy Kress, “Out of All Them Bright Stars.”
“Cordwainer Smith,” “The Dead Lady of Clown Town”
R.A. Lafferty, “The Groaning Hinges of the World”
“Raccoona Sheldon”, “The Screwfly Solution”
Harry Turtledove, “Forty, Counting Down” and “Twenty-one, Counting Up,” which tell the same story from the point of view of the character at two different times of life.
George R.R. Martin, “Unsound Variations”
Jack McDevitt, “Standard Candles”
Poul Anderson, “The Sorrow of Odin the Goth” and/or “In the House of Sorrows”
Robert A. Heinlein, “Water is for Washing” [technically, not an SF story]
November 29th, 2009 | 1:14 pm
2 stories, one a response to the other:
Hemmingway’s Hills Like White Elephants and David Foster Wallace’s Good People (quite obviously written in response to the first and also just absolutely gorgeous).
November 29th, 2009 | 8:59 pm
[...] came across favorite 25 short stories by accident. By accident as well, I came across last night an old movie I had never seen, [...]
November 29th, 2009 | 11:06 pm
I’m always on the lookout for wonderful stories. Thank you for your suggestions, many of which I already use. Here are some more of my favorites, used with my high-schoolers:
Gift of the Magi, Ransom of Red Chief (O. Henry)
Adventure of the Speckled Band (Conan Doyle)
Eleven (Cisneros)
First Confession (O’Connell)
Raymond’s Run (Bambara)
The Necklace (deMaupassant)
The Open Window (Saki)
November 30th, 2009 | 12:23 pm
My favorite short story is Jeffrey Archer’s “Old Love.” Also, Kipling’s “The Man Who Would be King.” Several of O’Henry’s famous short stories along with several of Hawthorne’s stories. Jackson’s “The Lottery.”
November 30th, 2009 | 8:29 pm
One writer who hasn’t been mentioned at all is David Foster Wallace. His very short story “Good People,” part of the novel he left incomplete at the time of his death, is an electrifying dramatization of a moment of moral choice.
November 30th, 2009 | 8:32 pm
Oh, sorry. Both Wallace and this story were mentioned a couple comments above.
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